The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1887-01-28

y y
Leipsic asked. There is no room for
superstition ia the legal and logical
mind.
''It is ill-luck for whoever touches
it, y said Bertha, with a Blush; but she
could not get him to believe such fool
He put the love-lock in the in
nermost recess of his pocketbook, and
then, with his own hands, gathered the
ruins Of the mirror on TO a table and
rang for a servant TO take them away
out Of everybody's sight.
You picked them up, STRIP said the
servant nervously.
II did," said Ludwig, with a laugh.
There's no fear Of ill-luck for you, my
good fellow, you are so cautious"
at would have been wise, sir, to
have left it as it fell until after the
change of the moon"
Ludwig gave a growl of contempt.
my good man, ! would not be such a
mOOnsuuek lunatic. Take the pieces
away"
Bertha admired him more than ever,
as every girl admires brave man. 1t
seemed such a daring deed to be the
one to pick up that mirror, she mistOok
his common sense for bravery.
Your grandfather is dying OF sheer
fright" the young man went on, step
ping out on the terrace and leading the
girl with him. The omen win come
true if the fear of it kills him"
''But, dear Ludwig" said the girl,
leaning on the balustrade, and feeling
helplessly ignorant as she looked up at
her wise lover, and loved him the more
for a mans. superior wisdom; ''we
should all like not TO believe in the
omen; but what could have knocked
the mirror DOWN."
It was indeed puzzling. The nails
that had held that mirror were as long
as aman's hand. They had been buried
in the wall like shafts of iron, and out
Of the wall they had dragged them
selves, after being for fifty years safe
and firm. Bertha herself had been in
the drawing room singing Gounod's
"SeFenBde," with her fianee leaning
against the piano watching the light
from the candles making a halo about
her fair hair, and the old Baron was
doing in his chair with the dog at his
feet, when all at once, with no hand
near it, the great mirror had dragged
its nails out of the opposite wall and
crashed down upon the floor. The dog
had hOwled and barked, the servants
had rushed in, and lin the midst of the
confusion the old mans voice had said
with a tremble:
''My hour has GOMEZ
His strength had failed; he had been
confined to his room; he was dying.
When Ludwig and Bertha walked
along the terrace they hushed their
steps near those open windows farther
on than the old drawing room,
He is awake again, said Ludwig,
looking into the curtained gloom. go
to him, Bertha, if you like, and 1 can
have smO6ein the garden. YOumight
ask him about the win. "
''But 1 don't want him to die, Lud-
wig"
"My poor little Bertha, what strange
things they have taught you! He won't
die moment sooner because he makes
a viii. 1t is the right thing to do"
Whatever Ludwig said was right, was
supremely right always to the lonely,
half taught girl; SO as she sat beside
the death-bed that evening she tenderly
and gently coaXed the old man to have
his last wishes written down. Ludwig
was called in from the garden, where
his cigar had been glimmering under
the lindens, and they sent for the vii
lage notary, and the butler was the
witness. 1t was well the will was
made that night. The old Baron was
dead before morning. Then how the
idlers at the Golden Dragon talked,
and how all the village whispered and
shuddered! Well, a few months after
Ludwig Schmidt owned the castle and
Bertha was his wife, and it was to be
hoped nothing more would jump down
from the walls to give mortals a warm
ing.
The gloomy Fritz Hartmann was more
gloomy than ever. Martha swept the
cottage and played with the child; but
he grumbled at his poverty, and the
child shrank from his black looks. He
was at the old notary's house every
night now.
"Are you selling him carving,
Fritz?" said Martha. ''Why, we shall
be rich!''
Fritz Hartmann was going out to the
notary's before he had even tasted a
bit after his work.
Il am doing some carving there-at
the house, Of a night. We may be
rich--if we are it is only my just right,
and thanks to nobody"
This was a strange way of talking OF
wood carving Martha wondered and
puzzled while she was taking off bright
haired Gretchen's strong little shoes
and putting her to bed. Well, after
all, it was the just right of a workman
to get the value of his work; perhaps
that was what Fritz meant. But Fritz
must be making a great deal of money
now. Why, he had gone up to the
castle in the middle of the day to mend
a broken part of the Swiss clock case.
When Fritz Hartmann reached the
notary's house he forgot that there was
any such thing as carving in the world,
unless it be carving out a fortune. Yet
/ there was some carving to be done, and
he might be rich. The old notary and
Hartmann walked in the garden by the
colored spires of hollyhock flowers.
/ They smoked and talked of the time OF
Hartmann's father, and how the old
notary knew him well, and how there
had been n quarrel
mo one in the village knows?'
asked the old lawyer keenly.
mo One-I ann a good gaoler to keeI
secrets fast
"But it is time, said the notary
''Your case is safe. The old BaroI
was almost dead. l was called in to
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